This is roughly equal to the combined annual budgets of the Coast Guard, National Park Service, and Environmental Protection Agency.
60 days since President Trump announced war with Iran, a critical deadline
Under the War Powers Resolution, President Trump must seek authorization from Congress to continue military operations in the war against Iran.
The Pentagon said the cost of the first eight weeks of the Iran war was roughly equal to the annual budgets of the Coast Guard, National Park Service and Environmental Protection Agency combined.
Two months after the United States and Israel launched their first attacks on Iran on February 28, Pentagon officials released an estimate that the cost of the war was $25 billion.
Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general, presented the estimate to lawmakers during a Congressional hearing on April 29. Most of the money covered the cost of depleted munitions, Hurst said, and some went to operations, maintenance and equipment replacement.
USA TODAY reported in March that estimates the Pentagon shared with lawmakers put the cost of munitions used in the first six days of the war at $11.3 billion.
How much is 25 billion dollars?
The Pentagon’s estimated war costs of $25 billion represent nearly a quarter of the $101.7 billion that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spent each month on food stamps for about 42.1 million low-income Americans in 2025, according to a Pew Research Center study.
That’s double the Coast Guard’s $13.8 billion annual budget and nearly triple the Environmental Protection Agency’s $8.8 billion 2026 budget for building water systems, monitoring and investigating pollution, and cleaning up waste.
The Pentagon’s figure is nearly eight times the $3.3 billion Congress appropriated to the National Park Service in 2025 to maintain 433 sites. The cost of the war is roughly equivalent to NASA’s $24.8 billion budget last year, and just under a third of the Education Department’s $82.4 billion budget in 2025.
The cost of the war is about five times the estimated cost of replacing Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which local officials estimate at $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion. The bridge collapsed in March 2024 after being hit by a cargo ship, killing six construction workers. The new bridge probably won’t be completed until 2030.
The cost of the first two months of the Iran war is already $7 billion more than the $18 billion the U.S. government spent on developing and testing a COVID-19 vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed in 2020 and 2021 during the first Trump administration.
$25 billion is “on the low side”
The Pentagon has not explained how it calculated the $25 billion estimate and referred Hurst’s testimony to USA TODAY for further comment. Military experts and lawmakers said Mr. Hearst’s number appears low, based on their own estimated calculations.
First, this estimate does not appear to include the cost of damage to U.S. military bases and assets sustained in Iranian retaliatory strikes. Congress’ rough estimates put those losses at about $15 billion, according to a person familiar with the estimates.
CNN reported that the $25 billion estimate did not take into account damage from Iranian retaliatory strikes, and sources said the total cost of the war so far could reach $50 billion.
Pressed by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California during an April 29 hearing, Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said the $25 billion “reflects the total cost that we’re looking at.”
Khanna responded that “all the experts disagree with you on the amount of damage today” to U.S. military assets and facilities.
“Your $25 billion figure is completely wrong,” he told Hegseth in another exchange.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said $25 billion is “probably a little on the low side.” He estimated total costs for the same period at $32 billion to $35 billion.
Cancian estimated the damage to U.S. military bases at about $4 billion, based on an analysis conducted by the center using images and maps of the bases.
Higher fuel prices caused by Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz will also impact U.S. military operations, he said. The U.S. military “uses a lot of fuel. I don’t know if that’s included in the $25 billion, but it’s definitely required by the U.S. military.”
Pentagon officials have said they may seek additional funding on top of the department’s record $1.5 trillion budget request next year.
Officials have not said how much they plan to ask for or when they will submit their request to Congress. Hegseth said at the hearing that the additional request would be “less than $25 billion, but there is much more to ask for than just Iran.”
Recent reports suggest additional requests could reach $100 billion.
